Definition of safety accidents and environmental incidents

Environmental accidents generally occur alongside safety incidents; for example, when oil tanks rupture and catch fire or production facilities explode, there is material loss, as well as the spread of firefighting water, foam, and exhaust gases. So how can we determine the nature of such accidents? ? ? Was it an accident caused by safety issues or environmental concerns? ! ! From the perspective of environmental protection, any cause of environmental pollution is necessarily an environmental accident. If there are casualties in an accident, it must be a safety incident.

Risk incidents pertain to areas outside the plant, while safety accidents occur within the plant. When calculating the number of deaths in the assessment of risk incidents, only the impact on environmental protection targets outside the factory premises is generally taken into account; safety accidents occur during the project’s production and storage processes, and in such cases more emphasis is placed on the impact on safe production and employees. The construction of a chemical project must undergo safety assessments and environmental risk assessments, which share both similarities and differences. As follows: (Personally, I find it difficult to understand the difference between these two when there is no involvement in actual projects.) 1. Similarities: Both fall under risk assessment; in terms of the assessment process, they both involve risk identification and evaluation – that is, determining the likelihood of an accident occurring (probability or chance), assessing or estimating the severity of the potential damage caused by such an accident, and proposing appropriate management strategies. Furthermore, safety hazards and environmental hazards are often interrelated; safety accidents can frequently lead to environmental accidents as well. For example, fires can cause air pollution, while maritime accidents involving oil tankers can result in marine pollution. Leaks of toxic gases resulting from safety accidents can lead to excessive levels of toxins in the atmosphere. This is an important reason why evaluators can easily give similar assessments to the two types of risks. 2. Differences: The main difference between the two lies in the differences in their evaluation objectives. Environmental risk assessment primarily focuses on sudden, acute environmental hazards transmitted through natural environments such as air, water bodies, and soil ； The assessment of major safety risks focuses on major safety hazards such as fires, explosions, and poisonings caused by human factors and equipment factors. It can be seen from this that the object of environmental risk assessment are the major environmental hazards transmitted through the natural environment, while the object of major safety risk assessment are the major safety hazards caused by human factors and equipment factors. Sequence Number, Accident Type, Contents of Environmental Risk Assessment, Contents of Major Safety Risk Assessment: 1. Oil leakage from long-distance petrochemical pipelines – Soil contamination and damage to the ecological environment; fire and explosion hazards. 2. Oil leakage at large oil terminals – Marine pollution; fire and explosion hazards. 3. Leakage of toxic substances from storage tanks and process equipment – Air pollution and harm to personnel; fire, explosion hazards, and acute poisoning of personnel. 4. Oil well blowouts – Soil contamination and damage to the ecological environment; fire and explosion hazards. 5. Blowouts from wells with high hydrogen sulfide levels – Air pollution and harm to personnel; fire, explosion hazards, and acute poisoning of personnel. 6. Leakage of flammable hydrocarbons from petrochemical process equipment – Fire and explosion hazards. 7. Emissions of substances such as sulfur dioxide from refineries – Air pollution and harm to personnel; acute poisoning of personnel.

Sequence Number, Assessment Stage, Purpose of Safety Risk Assessment, Purpose of Environmental Risk Assessment: 1. Risk identification – Identifying, recognizing, and analyzing hazards and harmful factors within a system; assessing the likelihood of accidents and acute hazards occurring. Analyzing and predicting potential dangers, harmful factors, as well as possible emergencies and accidents. 2. Risk calculation – Predicting the impacts and harms that dangerous and harmful factors may cause, calculating risk levels and determining whether the risks are acceptable, thereby providing a basis for risk management decisions. Predicting the effects on human safety and the environment resulting from accidents caused by hazard sources, calculating risk values, and evaluating the acceptability of risks to assist risk management decision-makers. 3. Risk management – Utilizing relevant principles of systems to propose measures for risk prevention, emergency response, and mitigation, thereby establishing optimal safety solutions for the system and achieving scientific, standardized, and systematic risk management. Using principles related to risk assessment, along with information about hazard sources, to develop effective measures for risk prevention, emergency response, and mitigation, thus achieving scientific, standardized, and systematic risk management and control. 4. Purpose of assessment – Improving the level of risk management, reducing the probability of risks, ensuring that risk levels are acceptable, and ultimately achieving intrinsic safety of hazard sources as well as safeguarding sustainable development. Improving the level of risk management, reducing risk probabilities, ensuring acceptable risk levels, achieving intrinsic safety of hazard sources, protecting human and environmental safety, and ensuring sustainable social development

An incident that affects the safety of people and property is a safety accident, while one that causes damage to the environment is an environmental accident. Of course, we generally refer to them all as accidents. Because safety accidents and environmental accidents coexist for a long time. A safety accident refers to an unexpected incident that occurs suddenly during the production and business operations of a unit (including activities related to such operations), which endangers human safety and health, damages equipment and facilities, or causes economic losses, thereby leading to the temporary suspension or permanent termination of those production and business operations (including activities related to them). An environmental pollution accident refers to a sudden incident in which the environment is polluted as a result of economic and social activities and behaviors that violate environmental protection regulations, as well as the impact of accidental factors or irresistible natural disasters. Such incidents lead to damage to wild animals and plants that are under special protection and to natural reserves, pose threats to human health, cause losses to the socio-economy and people’s property, and result in negative social consequences. 　　The main types include water pollution incidents, air pollution incidents, hazards caused by noise and vibration, solid waste pollution incidents, pollution incidents caused by pesticides and toxic chemicals, radiation pollution incidents, as well as incidents that result in damage to wildlife and natural reserves that are under special protection.

My latest understanding is this: usually, accidents in their early stages are safety-related incidents; as the accident progresses, it tends to turn into an environmental incident. As for determining the final nature of the accident, it seems that one should consider whether the impact or scope of the accident is more related to safety or to environmental issues

The two are closely related, yet they also have differences. Environmental accidents can be safety accidents, but safety accidents are not necessarily environmental accidents; however, if a safety accident progresses further, it can turn into an environmental accident. Sometimes it is both an environmental accident and a safety accident; the two are sometimes difficult to distinguish, and sometimes they are both. It’s difficult; whenever there’s an accident, one can’t keep their back straight.

I am currently working on formulating regulations for managing environmental accidents as well as emergency plans for environmental incidents; I’m also very torn regarding this issue! The company has way too many regulations; any safety, process, or equipment-related incident can lead to environmental incidents. I really don’t know how environmental incidents in this factory are classified

What was said about the second and third floors is quite reasonable. The vast majority of environmental pollution incidents are caused by safety accidents. The classification of such accidents depends on the severity of the consequences they cause. Any incident that leads to environmental pollution counts as an environmental pollution incident. If there are casualties, it constitutes a safety accident; the accident report should indicate that the environmental pollution incident occurred as a result of inadequate handling of the safety accident. For example, the environmental protection agency here connects the combustible gas detectors and fire alarm monitoring data from our company’s site to its online platform, in order to prevent accidents such as fires or explosions that could lead to environmental pollution, and to enable timely response.